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1,000-mile-journey begins with delay

By Heather Davis

E-E Columnist

My map app seems easy enough. Put in your starting point, your ending point and click the route button. With one spin of the “wait a minute” icon, you have three routes, the total miles, several points of interest and an estimated time of travel. This is all good and well, but I know one thing that will make this more accurate: A button to click if you are traveling with kids.

Take for instance last week when we were traveling all over the region for book signing events and appearances. Our first little jaunt had an estimated travel time of three hours and two minutes.

But, that’s how long it took us to leave the house.

First we had to go to the bathroom. And go to the bathroom again. We had to turn around and get the computer, our swimsuits, our phone chargers and the bag of favorite snacks that no one would want when 50 miles from everywhere. After no less than five returns back to the house, my hubby declared that we would not turn around again. I seconded his declaration and told The Daughters that whatever they left behind would stay behind.

Except that I really did need my purse.

We finally got out of our neighborhood and onto the highway an hour and four minutes after we planned on leaving. This was long enough for The Daughters to pick a fight. I don’t know what caused this ruckus; it had something to do with one of them breathing on the other because the breathed-upon child had crossed the imaginary Mason-Dixon line of the minivan.

I was certain of only one thing, “She did it.”

It was at this point in time that their dear ol’ dad pulled the car over to the side of the road and, with the strength of forefathers who have traveled countless miles on highways before him, bellowed, “So help me, I will turn this car around …”

Then we spent the next five minutes on the side of the road as he recalled trips that he didn’t have anything but counting road kill to entertain himself.

I swear to you that, at one point, he was going to insist he had been part of the Gold Rush of 1849, riding in the back of a covered wagon, fighting off wild buffalo. This would not be the time to tell him I remembered something else we had forgotten.

We hit the road again. Over the course of the next five hours and 37 minutes (Take that, map app!), we stopped for drinks, stopped for bathrooms, took two wrong turns, helped a turtle cross the road (I’m not sure where the chicken was) and visited a roadside stand that sold fresh fruit and had gator meat in the freezer out back.

Our trip took almost double the time predicted by the map app. This fact has helped me learn a few valuable lessons. First, the map app developer has never driven with children. Second, that developer is missing the ride of his life. And third, you can always buy clean underwear once you get where you’re going.